Sexual harassment in UK schools

Sexual bullying in the classroom rarely makes the headlines. But one in three 16-18 year old girls in the UK have experienced unwanted sexual touching at school. What does this tacit acceptance of harassment teach our children?

70% of 16-18 year olds say they've heard sexual name calling towards girls at school daily or a few times a week. Credit: Shutterstock

Sexual
harassment in the classroom rarely makes the headlines. But feminist
activists and organisations from UK Feminista to the End Violence
Against Women Coalition are increasingly noticing a disturbing trend
that is systematically disadvantaging young girls. This sexual
bullying
leaves girls feeling unable to participate in class. It leads to them
attaining lower grades. In extreme cases it forces girls to play
truant, or drop out of education all together.

When
we talk about sexual harassment, our immediate response is to think
of the workplace. According to the World Health Organisation,
however, school is now the most common setting for sexual harassment
and coercion.

In
fact, one in three 16-18 year old girls have experienced unwanted
sexual touching
at school in the UK and 71% of 16-18 year olds say they have heard
sexual
name calling
towards girls at school daily or a few times per week.

Holly
Dustin, of the End Violence Against Women Coalition (EVAW), who count
Amnesty International, Fawcett and The Child and Woman Abuse Study
Unit amongst their members, explains the reality of sexual
harassment in schools:

"Schools
across the UK are grappling with high levels of sexual harassment and
bullying, pressurised and coercive 'sexting' and girls being 'groped'
or otherwise sexually touched in corridors and playgrounds. Whilst
some schools are alive to the problem and actively address it, too
many are on the back foot, meaning that girls are growing and
learning in an unsafe and unequal environment.”

In
most workplaces there is an official process in place for dealing
with complaints of sexual harassment. British
sexual harassment law
includes rules around displaying sexually explicit and sexist imagery
in the workplace, which should also apply in schools. For example,
workplaces can no longer have the stereotypical ‘girly calendar’
on the staff room wall, as to do so creates an ‘intimidating,
hostile or humiliating working environment’ under the law.

But
in contrast, girls are often met with a shrug of the shoulders when
reporting to their teachers that they have been inappropriately
touched, teased with sexual language or physically threatened and
assaulted. One
in four teenagers
report that their teachers have never said unwanted sexual touching,
sexual naming calling, or the non-consensual sharing of sexual
pictures are unacceptable.

The Public Sector Equality Duty should
mean that sexual harassment law applies in schools, as it is a
workplace for teachers. So why does sexual harassment law
not seem to be properly enforced in the classroom?

When
I was at school, in the early days of the “lad’s
mag”
era, boys would often bring explicit images of women into class,
decorating their school books and folders with photos torn out of The
Sun and FHM? . Being endlessly exposed to these highly sexualised
images of women on a daily basis taught us that no matter how much we
shone in class, we, as women and girls, were still chiefly valued as
sex objects. The increasing access to pornographic images of women on
mobile phone devices has amplified this problem, with boys
pressurizing their female peers to view porn. One in three 16-18 year
olds say they have seen sexual
pictures on mobile phones
at school a few times in a month, or more. Girls also report boys
using mobile phone technology to take ‘upskirt’ shots – again
without the girl’s consent.

This
tacit acceptance of sexual harassment at school teaches girls that no
matter what they do, no matter how clever they are, how good at
sport, how successful, they can still be victimised by men simply
because of their sex. It sets up a pattern of behaviour where boys
believe they hold rights over girls’ bodies – and that their
sense of entitlement will not be challenged by those in charge, i.e.
teachers. It teaches boys that girls do not have a right to their
bodily autonomy. And it teaches girls that if boys behave
inappropriately towards them, any attempts to speak out against the
behaviour will not be heard.

One
result of this male culture of entitlement is a high level of abusive
behaviour in teen relationships. In fact, research carried out by the
NSPCC and Bristol University
discovered that one quarter of girls surveyed and 18% of boys had
reported physical violence within their relationships, with one in
nine girls reporting severe physical violence compared to 4% of boys.
Three quarters of girls reported emotional violence, and one in three
girls had experienced sexual violence within their relationship, with
16% of boys reporting sexual violence. 70% of girls and 13% of boys
stated that sexual violence had negatively impacted on their welfare.
And although most violence against boys was a one-off incident, girls
were more likely to report that partner violence was repeated, and
increased in severity over time.

While
girls are experiencing unchallenged daily sexual bullying from some
of their male peers, it is perhaps unsurprising that the violence
continues into intimate relationships.

Just
over a year ago, EVAW launched their ‘Schools
Safe 4 Girls’
campaign to tackle sexual harassment and sexual bullying. The
campaign encourages activists to ask their local schools to take
action on all kinds of sexual violence through proper sex and
relationships education (SRE). In response to the campaign, the
Shadow Home Secretary, Yvette Cooper, reiterated Labour’s promise
to introduce mandatory SRE. But the coalition has not followed
Labour’s lead.

Prior
to the 2010 general election, Labour had decided that mandatory sex
education should be included in the National Curriculum. The aim was
to try and use education to reduce the rates of intimate partner
violence in teen relationships, and tackle the high levels of sexual
harassment in the classroom through comprehensive sex education, with
gender equality, consent, respect and safety at its heart.

The
education department has since shown real reluctance to introduce
mandatory sex and relationships education that focuses on consent and
respect, even disbanding
their expert group on
sexual violence. In 2011, the government restructured its sex
and relationships advisory group
– bringing in organisations like Life, who promote abstinence and
are anti- abortion. For many, this seems like a regressive step.

There
is now a gap left by the ministerial position that schools will only
be ‘encouraged’
to include sex and relationships education in their curriculum,
rather than the subject being made mandatory. As is often the case,
feminist organisations are left trying to solve the problem. Women’s
Aid has developed their own toolkit to encourage teachers to start conversations about violence against
women, consent and respect.

As
the Director of EVAW, Dustin has been instrumental in leading the
campaign to make sure sex and relationships education is a mandatory
part of the National Curriculum, in order to combat sexual
harassment. She said:

"It
is crystal clear from the Children's Commissioner's recent
report
on young people's understanding of sexual consent that teaching young
people about consensual and respectful relationships should be a
basic obligation for all schools. Our Schools Safe 4 Girls campaign
is calling on politicians to make girls' safety a national priority."

Grassroots
feminist activism plays an important part in bringing about
legislative change and in pushing for existing laws to be better implemented. But activist influence can
only go so far, and we can only reach and persuade so many schools.
To tackle sexual bullying those responsible for the national
curriculum need to lead the change.

We
owe our young women more. Sexual harassment and bullying is not
understandable childish play. It is sexual violence.

Sian Norris is a writer and feminist activist. She is the founder and director of the Bristol Women's Literature Festival, and runs the successful feminist blog sianandcrookedrib.blogspot.com. She has written for the Guardian, the Independent, the New Statesman. Her first novel, Greta and Boris: A Daring Rescue is published by Our Street and her short story, The Boys on the Bus, is available on the Kindle. Sian is currently working on a novel based around the life of Gertrude Stein.

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